I wanted to share with you a small success Delilah had last night in our walk around the block.
You may remember there are a couple of dogs contained by an electronic fence at one of the houses we pass when we take our neighborhood walk.
One of the dogs is quite docile and just stands/sits there watching, the other dog loves to run back and forth along the border barking. This sets Delilah into a fine mood and gets her lunging and barking on the end of her leash trying to get at this dog.
I entice her with treats as I continue to walk but obviously the leash gets taut and I end up pulling on her, which I don’t care for.
We approach the house on the opposite side of the street and as we do I am ever watchful, when I see the outside light on I know the dog(s) are out.
Last night I decided to take Delilah on the 30 foot leash so she had a bit of freedom. As we got closer to the house I could see the light was on so I began wrapping the leash around my arm.
I mentioned to Hubby, “I don’t see a dog.”
Hubby murmured back, “He’s out there, just watching.”
Delilah knows where this house is and the closer we get, the more antsy she gets. Last night however she was intent on something on the ground and she stopped to piddle directly across from the house.
I had seen the dog though, so I stepped in front of her hoping to block her view.
I failed.
I could tell by the look in her eyes that she had seen the dog. As soon as she finished her business she made to head on over and give a not so friendly hello, but before she could get to the end of the leash (while it was still somewhat loose) I said, “Leave it, it’s ok” and calmly kept walking.
She turned and headed in my direction.
Then she hesitated a second and turned once again to confront her frenemy and one more time I said, “Leave it,” and kept walking.
Once again she returned to me, but this time she didn’t turn back and we continued our walk without further incident.
This morning Kristine at Rescued Insanity had a post called “Failure Isn’t Always What It Seems” where she shared examples of a failure turning into a success and she asked her readers to share instances where they had done something similar. I had been planning on sharing this as a blog post anyway and it didn’t dawn on me until I started typing that I had a perfect example here.
If I hadn’t failed in blocking Delilah’s view, she might not have had the opportunity to succeed at making a choice to walk past the other dog.
Following Kristine’s lead I will ask you, have you ever had an instance where a failure turned into a success? Did you view it that way at the time or did it take you a while (like me) to realize it?
Your failure turned into a success for Delilah! I’m wondering if you have taken her past that house since? Did she walk past the dog again?
Not yet Barb, but it’s in our plan!
Good job Delilah!
As I said on Kirstine’s blog, I think all of dog training is a series of failures followed by successes. Even when we fail a hunt test, there is usually some success we can take from it and then of course that presents an opportunity to train trouble areas for more success. 🙂
I think you are right, there are lessons to be learned from everything, successes and failures, you always take something positive from your tests and you always say something positive about your dogs after. Failures set us up for future successes. 🙂
Delilah you ROCK!!
Biggest one that comes to mind for me is Cheyenne missing her WD title last year by one bird but if she hadn’t missed that one bird I would have never found out that she is a “hell of a dog” according to our judge because I repeatedly sent her back after the bird and she would not give up.
Thanks Misty.
Wow that is awesome of the judge to compliment you on Cheyenne and very impressive that she wouldn’t give up!
Well done Jodi and Delilah! Tall person always talks to me softly when we come across other dogs, especially street dogs. He keeps me calm. If they are aggressive he places himself between me and the dog and we just keep walking.
Thanks Bassas, it sounds to me like you are a bit more reasonable then Delilah is. For some reason I can’t seem to always get thru. 🙂
Go Team Delilah! What a brilliant choice she made. I love how you handled this situation, just totally gave her the chance to make the right decision. You must have felt like dancing when she followed you. I am so excited for you both. While you may still have issues in the future, you know now it’s possible. And so does she.
Congratulations! (And thanks for the shout-out!)
Thanks Krisitine, you really know how I felt, I swear I could have floated home. Even Hubby said, it was ‘very good.’
Just like everything I’m hoping the more we do something the better we become at it. You and Shiva are living examples. 🙂
WTG Delilah…and Mom! It is so awesome when something finally clicks.
Each time I submit a manuscript or story, and I get lucky enough to get a response rather than a form rejection, I learn something about my writing and what I can do to improve it. So, yup, I guess writing is like dog training….series of failures and lessons, hopefully one day leading up to publication. 🙂
Donna, I know agents/publishers are over-whelmed but it would be so nice to get some kind of feedback other then, “it doesn’t fit our needs at this time.” How can we improve if we don’t know where it is lacking?
I sure hope you get published one day, so I can say “I’m going with my friend Donna, you know the PUBLISHED AUTHOR, to transport a dog.” 🙂
One of the tough things about doing management with your dog is that you don’t always realize how much progress they’ve made unless you make a mistake. Hurrah for Delilah and Jodi!
You are right Pamela or it’s when we think back to the beginning…:-)
Congrats with Delilah, how wonderful for her and you!
Thanks, it was wonderful!